Maurice Lucas was meaner than a junkyard dog with an impacted wisdom tooth. Maurice Lucas was as so soft hearted he wouldn’t hurt even the most annoying fly. No, there weren’t two Maurice Lucases.

Trust me, there was only one. And the Suns were fortunate to have him for three of his 12 NBA seasons.

During his career he was almost always referred to as an “enforcer”. In fact, The Enforcer! And you hardly read more than two or three paragraphs on him without coming across the word “fierce”. And with a menacing scowl and bruising game to match he was all of the above — on the court. [Read more...]

Lots of things come to mind when basketball fans remember Maurice Lucas, one of the truly underappreciated NBA greats, who passed away last weekend at 58 after a battle with cancer. The Phoenix Suns aren’t generally one of those things that come to mind. But Luke, who exemplified the “power” in “power forward,” played for the Suns for three seasons, and I’ll always remember him very fondly.

Luke was just past his prime when the Suns got him from the New York Knicks for another power forward, Truck Robinson, in 1982. Luke was not a prototypical Suns player, as I think of them. The prototypical Suns player, over the years of the team’s existence, has been a graceful, finesse-oriented player, precise and under control, creative and streamlined. I think of Connie Hawkins, Walter Davis, Alvan Adams, Paul Westphal, Larry Nance, Jason Kidd and Steve Nash. In some ways, the history of the Suns has been a long quest to find a bona-fide dominant power player to complement those prototypes, and when the Suns have found some good ones (Paul Silas, Charles Barkley, Amar’e Stoudemire), the team has come awfully close to championships. [Read more...]